Away! Second 3 o'clock call? Monolithic Voting.

Beginning Friday I will be engaged in five trips so future memos will be sporadic if at all.  This will give you a well deserved reprieve.

I hope, while I am gone, war will not break out in Korea, Iran, Israel,  America and Assad will quit killing his own people.

Should, however, this not prove to be the case remember we have Obama, Kerry and what's his name at The Pentagon, minding the store and giving much thought to the matter! That should prove comforting. After all look how the first 3 o'clock phone call from Benghazi was handled! (See 1 and 1a below.)
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****************************************

Washington State has approved gay marriage and legalized marijuana in a recent decision.

It all makes sense now.  Gay marriage & marijuana being legalized on
the same day.

Leviticus 20:13- "If a man lays with another man, he should be
stoned."

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Is America in decline? Have we seen our best days or will the decade just prove a passing phenomena?
McCann's argument is hard to rebut. (See 2 below.)
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Hamas has split with Iran over Syria but still keeps the door open. Meanwhile, Hamas now leaches off Quatar.  (See 3 below.)
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Some members of The Fed are concerned!  DUH!!! (See 4 below.)
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The lies have it! Results?  Monolithic black voting! (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)US, S. Korea on top alert as North missile spotted in launch position


The United States and South Korean armed forces went on the highest level of alert - Watchcon 2 - Thursday, April 11, ready for multiple launches after  at least one North Korean ballistic Musudan missile was sighted fueled and ready to launch at any moment on the country’s eastern coast.  With an estimated range of more 3,400 kilometers, it places US bases in Guam and the Okinawa islands within range as well as South Korea and Japan.

According to a senior US defense official in Washington, the floating SBX X-band radar is in position for tracking missiles fired by Pyongyang. South Korean officials, commenting on the apparent movement of several ballistic missiles on North Korea’s east coast, report that this is an apparent attempt to confuse intelligence monitoring by the US, Japan and South Korea.

The US and Japan, which earlier deployed Patriot interceptors in Tokyo, have said that any missile would be intercepted if it showed signs of heading for the United States or Japan. But neither mentioned a US military target or the possibility of a missile flying over Japan to land in the Pacific Ocean.

Military sources in Washington point to the US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s warning Wednesday that North Korea is “skating very close to a dangerous line” with its bellicose rhetoric on nuclear arms, and his stress on America’s ability to protect itself and its allies, as the most serious statement to come from the Obama administration so far. It was the first warning of a US military response to a North Korean missile launch.

South Koreans are for the first time showing signs of anxiety about a possible outbreak of war. People have started stocking food and parents were telling reporters Thursday that children are being kept home from school in case of a sudden war emergency.

Several Western intelligence sources attribute Pyongyang’s saber-rattling to a power struggle ongoing in the top ranks of the North Korean military command between supporters of the young leader Kim Jong-Un and his opponents, who say he lacks the qualities befitting a commander-in-chief of the North Korean armed forces.

The latter group of generals urges reducing Kim to a titular role and keeping control of the military in their own hands.

In his drive for military credibility, say those sources, the young leader is constantly photographed on visits to army units accompanied by a bevy of generals and soldiers and demonstratively testing their weapons and barking out operational orders.

In one television segment aired by North Korean state TV Wednesday, hundreds of North Korean soldiers were shown standing in their positions and then, upon catching sight of the president and party, rushing toward him in great excitement, although they didn’t dare get too close.

Such staged scenes, say the sources, point up the North Korean president’s weakness and uncertainty rather than his control and popularity in the army.

Those sources predict that Kim Jong-Un may feel compelled to assert himself by ordering a missile launch. Backing down at this point, a failed launch or a foreign interception would be a black mark against him and seriously undermine a leadership which is rooted in a ruthless personality cult. It might even lead to his ouster.

The Korean crisis heads the agenda of the G8 foreign ministers meeting in London Thursday.

1a) Iran's North Korean future

By Victor Davis Hanson

The idea of a nuclear Iran -- and of preventing a nuclear Iran -- terrifies security analysts.

Those who argue for a preemptive strike against Iran cannot explain exactly how American planes and missiles would take out all the subterranean nuclear facilities without missing a stashed nuke or two -- or whether they might as well expand their target lists to Iranian military assets in general. None can predict the fallout on world oil prices, global terrorism and the politically fragile Persian Gulf, other than that it would be uniformly bad.

In contrast, those who favor containment of a nuclear Iran do not quite know how the theocracy could be deterred -- or how either Israel or the regional Sunni Arab regimes will react to such a powerful and unpredictable neighbor.

The present crisis with North Korea offers us a glimpse of what, and what not, to expect should Iran get the bomb. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would gain the attention currently being paid to Kim Jong-un -- similarly not otherwise earned by his nation's economy or cultural influence.

We should assume that the Iranian theocracy, like the seven-decade-long Kim dynasty inNorth Korea, would periodically sound lunatic: threatening its neighbors and promising a firestorm in the region -- if not eventually in the United States and Europe as well.

An oil-rich, conventionally armed Iran has already used that playbook. When it becomes nuclear, those previously stale warnings of ending Israel or attacking U.S. facilities in the Persian Gulf will not be entirely laughed off, just as Kim Jong-un's insane diatribes are not so easily dismissed.

North Korea has taught the world that feigned madness in nuclear poker earns either foreign aid or worldwide attention -- given that even a 99 percent surety of a bluff can still scare Western publics. North Korea is the proverbial nutty failed neighbor who constantly picks on the successful suburbanites next door, on the premise that the neighbors will heed his wild nonsensical threats because he has nothing and they have everything to lose.

Iran could copy Kim's model endlessly -- one week threatening to wipe Israel off the face of the map, the next backing down and complaining that problems in translation distorted the actual, less bellicose communiqué. The point would not necessarily be to actually nuke Israel(which would translate into the end of Persian culture for a century), but to create such an atmosphere of worry and gloom over the Jewish state as to weaken the economy, encourage emigration and erode its geostrategic reputation.

North Korea is a past master of such nuclear shakedown tactics. At times Pyongyang has reduced two Asian powerhouses -- Japan and South Korea -- to near paralysis. Can the nations that gave the world Toyota and Samsung really count on the American defense umbrella? Should they go nuclear themselves? Can North Korean leadership be continually bought off with foreign aid, or is it really as crazy serious as it sounds?

Iran would also be different from other nuclear rogue states. The West often fears a nuclearPakistan, given that a large part of its tribal lands is ungovernable and overrun with Islamic radicals. Its government is friendly to the West only to the degree that American aid continues.

Yet far larger and more powerful India deters nuclear Pakistan. For all the wild talk from both the Pakistani government and tribal terrorists, there is general fear in Pakistan that India has superior conventional and nuclear forces. India is also unpredictable and not the sort of nation that can be periodically threatened and shaken down for concessions.

Iran has no comparable existential enemy of a billion people -- only a tiny Israel of some 7 million. The result is that there is no commensurate regional deterrent.

Nor does Iran have a tough master like nuclear China. Even Beijing finally pulls on the leash when its unpredictable North Korean client has threatened to bully neighbors and create too unprofitable a fuss.

Of course, China enjoys the angst that its subordinate causes its rivals. It also sees North Korea as a valuable impediment to a huge, unified new Westernized Korea on its borders. But that said, China does not want a nuclear war in its backyard. That fact ultimately means North Korea is muzzled once its barking becomes too obnoxious.

A nuclear Iran would neither worry about a billion-person, nuclear existential enemy nearby like India, nor a billion-person patron like China that would establish redlines to its periodic madness. Instead, Teheran would be free to do and say what it pleased. And its nuclear status would become a force multiplier to its enormous oil wealth and self-acclaimed world leadership of Shiite Muslims.

If North Korea has been a danger, then a bigger, richer and undeterred nuclear Iran would be a nightmare.

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2)

Why the United States is a Dying Country

By Steve McCann
Recently Rush Limbaugh opined that the United States is a dying country.   For many years that reality has been painfully obvious to those of us who immigrated to the United States having experienced first-hand the suffering inherent in the near total destruction of a nation which inevitably occurs as the end-product of immorality, despotism and radical ideology.  

This nation is repeating the disastrous evolutionary process that has plagued so many failed nations throughout mankind's history.  This process begins with a society willing to reject the fundamental concept that is necessary for any nation to thrive and prosper: respect for the uniqueness of each individual and self-determination.

On January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court validated abortion on demand (up to the point of so-called viability) regardless of circumstances. Many of my acquaintances celebrated this decision as a monumental advancement in women's and societal rights.  I, on the other hand, was overcome with a sense of foreboding.  I was appalled and openly stated that this nation had embarked on the road of demeaning and devaluing life which would lead to a society devoid of morality and integrity with the ultimate ascension into power those who would destroy this nation as founded.  My warnings fell on deaf ears as I was ridiculed and accused of being an anachronism as these things could never happen in the United States.

As there were few that shared my premonition, I could only watch over the past 40 years as the American people have sanctioned, through legal abortions, the death of over 54.5 million children.  Once this disregard of human life took hold, the citizens of this nation were susceptible to wholesale changes within society.  Far too many of the American people, flush with prosperity, willfully ignored the infiltration of the education, media and entertainment establishments by the 1960's radicals, the most narcissistic and radical legion of socialist true-believers on the face of the earth.  Through the control of these media of indoctrination, an ever increasing percentage of the population has been conditioned to believe there are no moral absolutes and there is a limitless list of rights as granted by the government.

Since 1973 there has been the open promotion of euthanasia, the abandonment of traditional behavioral guidelines and the active denigration of organized religion together with the successful inculcation of the entitlement mentality. The concurrent belief in an all powerful government has unalterably frayed the ties that bind all Americans and greatly eroded the ability of the society as a whole to successfully weather an overwhelmingly severe financial or societal crisis without looking to the government as the savior.  Thus the populace was pre-conditioned, when the right circumstances occurred, to elect a charismatic demagogue and radical as President of the United States. 

However, as long as no national leader in the mold of the charismatic despots of the twentieth century emerged to seize the reins of government, I maintained some degree of optimism that the innate good sense and character of the American people would eventually prevail and the United States could reverse course and continue its unique place in the annals of mankind.

That hope was dashed upon the rocks when I first saw and listened to Barack Obama. Here was the man that represented the sum of all my fears and the catalyst that would make certain the United States would become a dying country.   In the charismatic manner of the twentieth century despots, he was someone who was a stranger to the truth, devoid of any integrity and hell-bent on imposing a radical ideology on the nation.  When the financial crisis of 2008 descended on the nation, the ideal circumstance occurred that would propel him into office.

Barack Obama, as did Mussolini, Lenin, Mao and Hitler before him, has the ability to visibly remain above the fray, appear as the champion of the people and manipulate the emotions of an ill-educated populace.  In the case of Obama he has the further benefit of being able to exploit the racial guilt embedded in the American society.

In keeping with many of the tactics employed in Italy and Germany in the 1920's and 30's -- and many other nations since,  Barack Obama and his fellow travelers in the Democratic Party have, over the past five years, followed in the footsteps of these despotic regimes -- all of which have ended up on the ash heap of history.

Through new legislation, government regulations, tax policy, and direct investment, Obama is in the process of creating a fascist economy whereby major corporations, financial institutions and small businesses will be, on a de facto basis, controlled and manipulated by the government.  It is immaterial that this will make American businesses overwhelmingly uncompetitive or be unable to expand and thus create wealth and jobs.  The economy that has created the highest standard of living in history will thus stagnate and decline drastically altering the nation's ability to defend itself.

Through ObamaCare, which was never about health care per se, the government will eventually control not only access to health care but the behavior of all Americans.  There will be, in due course, no right to privacy.

By means of the current push for gun control Obama intends to initiate the first step to registration and eventual confiscation of guns from those the government deems to be unfit to own a firearm. 

All autocratic regimes require a scapegoat in order to keep the populace in turmoil while they go about seizing all the levers of power; this regime has done the same utilizing the so-called wealthy, conservatives, evangelical Christians, and a clueless Republican Party as their focus of evil.

In order to ensure that the people will have no recourse but to accept the mandates of the government, the process of implanting their fellow radicals in the judiciary and throughout the bureaucracy has been accelerated. 

The Obama cabal is intent on keeping the border unguarded and allowing millions of illegal aliens to become citizens as further assurance of maintaining control of the government. Their unrelenting effort to fight all legislation requiring voter identification confirms this determination.

Rush is right, the United States is a dying country.  Until the American people and the only viable political opposition, the Republican Party, begin to understand that reality, there is no hope of recovery.   Will the citizenry evict the Obama radicals from government and begin the process of recovery or will the nation eventually fragment into two or three independent nations or will there be in due course a violent societal upheaval?  

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3)Iran's 'axis of resistance' loses its Palestinian arm to Syrian war

By Nicholas Blanford

Before the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011, Hamas was a key ally of Damascus and a component of the Iran-led "axis of resistance" that challenged Israel and the West in the Middle East.

But after two years of bloodshed in Syria, Hamas has abandoned Damascus and distanced itself from Iran, a major supporter of the Assad regime. Instead the Palestinian terrorist group is courting potential new suitors, particularly the small but influential Gulf state of Qatar, and Egypt, which controls the crucial southern border of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and is ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood, the ideological parent of Hamas.

"The Hamas split with Damascus... is undeniable. Hamas could not maintain any relationship with the Syrian regime in the face of the wide and deep opprobrium it faces in the Arab Sunni street, Hamas' principal support base," says Randa Slim, a research fellow at the New America Foundation and a scholar at the Middle East Institute.

But given the shifting dynamics of the region and the sharpening of the Sunni-Shiite divide, Hamas still appears to be keeping its options open with its former patron Iran and fellow anti-Israel resistance group, the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah.

"Hamas is forced to navigate uncharted waters post-Arab Spring and it is in its interest to keep all channels open," says Slim.

MILITARY SUPPORT
The extent of the rupture between Hamas and the Assad regime is underscored by the fact that the Palestinian group is allegedly helping train units of the rebel Free Syrian Army in several areas of eastern Damascus, according to Western diplomats and sources in the Syrian opposition.

The training appears to be specialized, focusing on helping the rebels develop better rockets and dig tunnels from which they can launch attacks in preperation for a widely anticipated offensive to uproot the regime from the capital. The Ezzidine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, has extensive experience at building tunnels in the Gaza Strip, some for smuggling weapons and goods from neighboring Egypt, and others to infiltrate Israel or launch attacks against Israeli outposts.

"The Qassam Brigades have been training units very close to Damascus — in Yalda, Jaramana, Babbila. These are specialists. They are really good," says a Western diplomat with high-level contacts in the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition who visits Damascus regularly.

A Syrian opposition source who lives in Damascus confirmed that tunnels were being dug in some areas under rebel control and that the regime is aware of the tactic. The source says that the Syrian army has dug a seven-yard deep trench "to cut off any extending tunnel" around the perimeter of Mezzeh airport, a key military facility in Damascus, and similar measures have been taken around Rawda presidential palace in the center of the capital.

But a senior Hamas official categorically denied allegations that Hamas fighters are training FSA rebels or are involved in any military activities in Syria.

"Our position is clear on what is happening in Syria and we believe there must be a political solution," says Osama Hamdan, who lives in Lebanon. "There are no members of Ezzidine al-Qassam or any terrorist members of Hamas in Syria. We don't interfere in the internal problems of Syria. Our members there are normal civilians, Syrian Palestinians, who live with their families there. From the beginning of what has happened in Syria we rejected as a movement any involvement of any Palestinian in the current events in Syria."

THE BREAK 
The Assad regime has hosted Hamas in Damascus since 1999, when the group was expelled from Jordan. However, when the uprising against the Assad regime began two years ago, Hamas found itself caught between its loyalty to the regime that took it in and obligations to its Palestinian supporters, who overwhelmingly sided with the Syrian opposition.

Furthermore, Sunni Hamas risked angering the predominantly Sunni opposition in Syria by standing beside the regime that is drawn from the Alawite sect, a heterodox Shiite sect, and supported by Shiite Iran and Hezbollah.

According to a Western analyst who has close contacts with the Hamas leadership, Khaled Meshaal, the political leader of Hamas, attempted in August 2011 to persuade Assad to follow a political path to end the crisis, and offered a series of suggestions.

"He, Assad, was intrigued by the Hamas program, which included reconciliation, the call for open elections — after which Assad would step down — an exchange of prisoners, a national plebiscite on a new constitution — seven steps in all," the analyst says, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of his contacts with the Hamas leadership.

Assad apparently told Hamas that he liked the seven recommendations and said he would consult with his close aides on how to implement them.

"Twenty four hours after submitting the paper, however, the Hamas political leadership was told that the government had decided to go in another direction. It was at that point that Hamas decided that it would leave Damascus," the analyst says.

According to a report last week in Kuwait's Al-Rai al-Aam newspaper, Mr. Meshaal enlisted the support of Hezbollah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, in persuading Assad to follow a political path. The report cited a source as describing Assad as "arrogant and inexperienced" and solely responsible for the crisis by rejecting a political solution.

According to the Western analyst, some members of the Hamas leadership initially preferred to remain in Damascus, among them Meshaal's deputy, Moussa Abu Marzouk. But Abu Marzouk apparently changed his mind in October 2011, while driving to Damascus airport for a trip to Cairo.

"Inadvertently, his convoy came across a pile of bodies, the result of fighting by the Syrian Army. The grim spectacle stunned Marzouk," the analyst says.

Meshaal quietly departed Damascus in February 2012 and moved to Qatar. That same month, Ismael Haniyah, the head of the Hamas government in Gaza, openly declared the movement's support for the Syrian opposition, lauding their struggle to achieve "freedom, democracy, and reform."

The Assad regime responded by raiding offices and homes of top Hamas officials and seizing cars and equipment belonging to the absent Meshaal. The state-run media accused him of being "ungrateful and treacherous."

In August 2012, a mid-ranking Hamas official in Damascus was shot dead in his home, an act that Hamas publicly blamed on Israel, although there was speculation that agents of the Assad regime committed the murder.

On April 3, following Meshaal's reelection as head of Hamas' political wing for a fifth term, Ath-Thawra, a Syrian regime newspaper, said that he had shifted "the gun from the shoulder of resistance to the shoulder of compromise."

Meshaal "cannot believe his luck. After an acclaimed history of struggle, he has returned to the safe Qatari embrace, wealthy, fattened in the age of the Arab Spring's storms," it said.

QATAR FILLS THE VOID
For now, Qatar has emerged as Hamas's new sponsor. Meshaal lives in the capital Doha, while Hamas has opened offices in Cairo. The Gulf state helped cement its relationship with Hamas in October 2012, when Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the Qatari emir, became the first foreign head of state to visit Hamas-run Gaza. During his visit, he pledged $400 million to the tiny coastal strip.

But while Hamas has abandoned Syria, has it completely renounced its relationship with its former sponsor Iran?

Meshaal admitted last November in an interview with CNN that the Hamas relationship with Iran was "affected and harmed" by disagreements over Syria, but downplayed its severity. "It is not as it used to be in the past, but there is no severing of relations," he said.

The Western analyst says that the break with Iran was "complete and somewhat bitter." But other analysts don't believe that contacts have been entirely broken, partly because Hamas recognizes that during such a turbulent period in the Middle East, it is in no position to throw in its lot with any one particular sponsor. Qatar has proven to be a potentially fickle friend — little of the $400 million it pledged Gaza has so far been received.

Even Egypt under President Mohammed Morsi — a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Hamas ally — has proven disappointing for Hamas so far. The Egyptian authorities have blocked smuggling tunnels into Gaza and are more preoccupied with internal developments than actively supporting Hamas with cash and weapons.

"The distancing from Iran may prove problematic because it leaves Hamas more dependent on support from Arab governments that have either proved unreliable or whose interests clash with those of Hamas," says Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

"Although Hamas wishes to confirm its Sunni credentials to other Arabs, it has tried to reaffirm relations with Iran and deny irreconcilable differences over Syria," Mr. Sayigh says.

Indeed, while Iran and Hamas can disagree on the fate of the Assad regime - and perhaps actively support opposing sides in that conflict - both parties are still united in their opposition to Israel.

"I doubt a complete rupture of relations between Iran and Hamas. It is in neither party's interest," says Slim of the Middle East Institute. "Iran and Hezbollah's game is always long, nuanced, and strategic. Rarely do they burn bridges with former allies. Even with their enemies, they negotiate while fighting."

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4)Some Fed Members Fear Monetary Policy Effects

By: Jeff Cox

Federal Reserve policy makers worried about increased risks due to the central bank's aggressive monetary stimulus, though most view those dangers as "manageable" for now.

Minutes from the most recent Fed meeting suggest that members have grown increasingly concerned that things could get messy if it continues its asset-purchasing and money-printing policies too far into the future.

Among those concerns are instability to the financial system, a sudden rise in interest rates and inflation.

"In particular, participants pointed to possible risks to the stability of the financial system, the functioning of particular financial markets, the smooth withdrawal of monetary accommodation when it eventually becomes appropriate, and the Federal Reserve's net income," the March meeting minutes state. "Their views on the practical importance of these risks varied, as did their prescriptions for mitigating them.

Despite those worries, there appeared little indication of enough votes among the 12 Open Market Committee members to curtail the current policy anytime soon.

Moreover, the March 19-20 meeting occurred before some recent data showed economic growth began to sputter heading into the spring.

"There's been so much water under the bridge since then," said John Canally, investment strategist and economist at LPL Financial. "If the FOMC (met) today, you might see a shift toward the more dovish side. We haven't changed our view that you'll continue to see these purchases."

Market reaction consequently was fairly muted despite the seeming discontent among Fed board members, with the stock market continuing its dizzying 2013 rally. Bond yields actually fell amid a tame safe-haven bid, with the benchmark 10-year note rate at 1.78 percent.

The release of the minutes comes as Wall Street tries to anticipate when the Fed will begin scaling back its asset-buying program, known as quantitative easing.

Under the latest version of QE, the central bank is buying $85 billion a month in Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities, while critics warn of potential asset bubbles and inflation problems.

This month's minutes were released earlier than anticipated due to an error at the Fed in which the minutes were emailed inadvertently.

The comments as reported in the minutes reflect some of the strongest misgivings yet about Fed policy.

Members indicated a general tone that the moves have been necessary to stabilize the economy following the financial crisis that began in 2008.

The Fed aggressively drove down interest rates to the point where mortgage borrowing hit historic lows. At the same time, the stock market has soared, sending both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 have hit record highs.

The Fed has tied its rate policy to a 6.5 percent unemployment rate and 2.5 percent inflation level, neither of which appears attainable anytime soon, particularly considering the anemic 88,000 job gain in March.

But some also said that the costs are escalating the longer the program continues.

"A number of participants remained concerned about the potential for financial stability risks to build," the minutes said.

The discussions also provided a clearer path for how the Fed intends to unwind its $3.2 trillion balance sheet, though an exit from the zero interest rate policy remains less clear.

At least as far as the $1.1 trillion mortgage-backed securities portion is concerned, the Fed is unlikely to sell those back into the marketplace, opting instead to hold that debt to duration. Members felt that would minimize marketplace disruptions.

"A few participants noted that curtailing the purchase program was the most direct way to mitigate the costs and risks," the minutes said.

That reflected a growing sentiment that the best way to manage policy risks was to stop.

"A few participants noted that they already viewed the costs as likely outweighing the benefits and so would like to bring the program to a close relatively soon," the minutes said. "A few others saw the risks as increasing fairly quickly with the size of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet and judged that the pace of purchases would likely need to be reduced before long."

Nevertheless, the final vote saw only dissent, coming from Esther L. George, while the other 11 members affirmed the policy statement.

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5)Five Decades of Lies Help Dems Create Monolithic Black Vote

By Larry Elder

As recently as 1956, nearly 39 percent of blacks voted Republican in that year's presidential election. After the Civil War, Abe Lincoln's Republican Party easily carried the black vote -- where blacks were allowed to vote. Unwelcome in the Democratic Party, most blacks voted Republican and continued to do so through the early part of the 20th century. It wasn't until 1948, when 77 percent of the black vote went to Harry Truman, who had desegregated the military, that a majority of blacks identified themselves as Democrats.

Yet, as a percentage of the party, more Republicans voted for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than did Democrats. For his key role breaking the Democrats' filibuster and getting the act to pass the stalled Senate, Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen, a conservative from Illinois, landed on the cover of Time magazine. President Lyndon Johnson called Dirksen "the hero of the nation." The Chicago Defender, then the country's largest black daily newspaper, applauded Dirksen's "generalship" for helping to successfully push through the bill.

Older black voters sometimes explain they're opposed to Republicans because of the "racist" Southern strategy. But Richard Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchannan, credited with inventing the "Southern strategy," considered the Democratic Party the party of the racists. Buchanan said: "We would build our Republican Party on a foundation of states' rights, human rights, small government and a strong national defense, and leave it to the 'party of [Democratic Georgia Gov. Lester] Maddox, [1966 Democratic challenger against Spiro Agnew for Maryland governor George] Mahoney and [Democratic Alabama Gov. George] Wallace to squeeze the last ounces of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice.'"

But before that, another pivotal event occurred that helped the GOP-as-racist meme. In 1960, during the presidential campaign, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested following a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in Atlanta. Hundreds of other protestors were released, but King was jailed on a trumped-up probation violation for failing to have a Georgia driver's license.

King's aides reached out to then-Vice President and Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon. They also reached out to the Democratic nominee, John F. Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy called the Atlanta judge handling the case. Shortly after that call, the judge released King. Nixon, according to Harry Belafonte, a King supporter, "did nothing." Is that true?

Nixon, it turns out, had a much closer relationship with King than did Kennedy. In the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., records show considerable handwritten notes and correspondence between Nixon and King. This includes a 1957 letter from King acknowledging their previous meetings, which thanked Nixon for his "assiduous labor and dauntless courage in seeking to make the Civil Rights Bill a reality," and praised him for his "devotion to the highest mandates of the moral law."

But in 1960, on the eve of the election, Nixon was in a tough spot. Nixon's public silence might be misconstrued as acceptance of King's arrest. On the other hand, as a candidate for his boss's job, Nixon worried about the political costs of appearing ungrateful if he chastised President Dwight Eisenhower for not taking stronger action. Eisenhower, however, was content to let the Justice Department handle the matter.
According to historian and presidential biographer Stephen Ambrose, while Nixon made no public comments, he telephoned Attorney General William Rogers to find out if King's constitutional rights were being infringed, thus opening the door for federal involvement. Nixon, a lawyer, was concerned about the ethics of calling a judge to get him to release someone.

Nixon, writes Ambrose, told his press secretary: "I think Dr. King is getting a bum rap. But despite my strong feelings in this respect, it would be completely improper for me or any other lawyer to call the judge. And Robert Kennedy should have known better than to do so." That Bobby Kennedy, also a lawyer, nevertheless made a phone call to the judge did not alter the issue of whether it was appropriate. In retrospect, an easy call, but not at the time.

Two million pamphlets titled, "'No Comment' Nixon Versus a Candidate With a Heart, Senator Kennedy," were distributed in black churches. Never mind that in 1956 Nixon revealed he was an honorary member of the NAACP. Or that Nixon pushed for passage of the '57 civil rights bill in the Senate. Or that Time magazine wrote that Nixon's support for civil rights incurred the wrath of one of his segregationist opponents, Sen. Richard Russell, D-Ga., who sarcastically called Nixon the NAACP's "most distinguished member."

But the GOP-is-racist meme can be heard nightly on MSNB-Hee Haw and in political science and history classes all over the country. Actor Morgan Freeman calls the tea party racist. Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., tells us that the GOP wants to "literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws."

Keeping blacks ignorant of history remains crucial to this caricature of the Republican Party -- and to the monolithic Democratic black vote. Not so black and white, is it? 

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